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ISLAMABAD - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf will step down as army chief before December 1, a senior official said Thursday as the military ruler worked on the make-up of a caretaker government.
The announcement came as two boys were killed by gunfire during a protest by supporters of detained opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the first such deaths under a state of emergency declared by Musharraf.
Musharraf huddled with aides on the shape of an administration to steer nuclear-armed Pakistan to general elections promised by early January. The current parliament dissolves at a minute before midnight.
He has been facing growing international pressure to shed his uniform, which he has kept since seizing power in a coup in 1999, end emergency rule and allow a free and fair vote.
"The president has said he will give up his uniform before December 1," attorney general Malik Mohammad Qayyum told a news conference.
He said he expected the Supreme Court to rule by that time on the legality of Musharraf's October 6 re-elections. Musharraf has previously said he will wait for the verdict before he steps down as army chief of staff.
Critics say jitters over the likely court ruling led to Musharraf imposing the state of emergency on November 3.
Qayyum said the caretaker government would take an oath on Friday morning after the dissolution of the outgoing parliament -- the first to complete a full five-year term in Pakistan's history.
Musharraf's own term officially ends at midnight but as incumbent, he will remain in office until the court decision.
"In the constitution the incumbent will continue until the next president takes oath," Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azeem told AFP. "That is only a common-sense approach, you cannot have the office lying vacant."
Opposition party leaders, most of them in detention, exiled or under house arrest, are considering boycotting the polls, saying they can be neither free nor fair under emergency rule.
Bhutto and another former premier, Nawaz Sharif, spoke by telephone about working together to oust Musharraf, an alliance that would bring together two of the country's biggest opposition parties.
A Sharif party spokesman said they had agreed to bury past differences to launch a "joint struggle," but Bhutto said only that they would hold further talks on establishing a common agenda.
She confirmed, however, that she was breaking off all talks with Musharraf, with whom she had been in Western-backed power-sharing negotiations before he declared emergency rule.
"Too many broken promises, too many broken commitments," she told private Dawn television. "We have said very clearly that we cannot keep doors open when commitments are broken."
She spoke for two hours with US consul general Brian Hunt, who crossed the barbed wire barricades to see her under house arrest in the eastern city of Lahore.
He reiterated US demands for an end to emergency rule and for Musharraf to quit as head of the army before elections.
John Negroponte, number two to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, is due to arrive Friday to press the concerns of Washington, which sees Pakistan as a vital ally in the fight against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Another opposition politician, former cricket legend Imran Khan, was moved to Lahore's biggest prison earlier after being charged under anti-terror laws for protesting against emergency rule.
In Karachi, police official Fayyaz Khan said that during a protest against Bhutto's house arrest, "somebody among the demonstrators opened fire and two boys aged around 11 or 12 were killed."
He said there had been gunfire for the past three days during rallies by Bhutto's party in the slum neighbourhood of Lyari.
A Bhutto party spokesman denied any of its supporters had opened fire and suggested the involvement of undercover police. - AFP/ir
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